year\’s best films

There’s no accounting for taste, which is why the year’s-best lists veer all over the place, and some crit picks leave us wondering if the reviewer was sipping from a flask at the screening.

(That doesn’t happen with the Bay Area contingent but I can’t speak for other parts of the country, where one reviewer was recently outed for recommending films based on their trailers. For shame.)

Which brings us back to the present. I haven’t seen all of the 2008 releases. Frankly, I don’t know if anyone has, except perhaps a handful who fit the criteria of single, socially challenged, obsessed, and unaware there was an election last year.

But like everyone else in the universe, I have my likes and dislikes, my choices for best and worst. (The latter starts and stops with with “Speed ‘what were they thinking?’ Racer.”)

If this were purely a remembrance of personal favorites it would include “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” and “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.” They were great fun but, in critic-speak, “awkward” in too many spots to qualify as best-ofs.

My other favorites – “Wall-E,” “Milk,” “Tell No One,” “Vicky Christina Barcelona,” “The Visitor,” “Slumdog Millionaire,” “Frost/Nixon” and “The Dark Knight” – were also flawed here and there, but not enough to bump them for the list.

To which I’ll add “Iron Man” and, in a tie for 10th, “The Wrestler” and “Revolutionary Road” – because 10 seems to be the number that provides closure for most people who cherish these sorts of compilations.

Among my criteria: I walked away with the feeling, Hey, that was really something, and, the picture was easy to see a second time around on DVD.

The list, in approximate order, last to first:

10. (tie) “Revolutionary Road” and “The Wrestler”: both feature excellent acting, by Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio as an unhappily married 1950s suburban couple in the unsettling former, and by Mickey Rourke for his raw portrayal of an over-the-hill pro wrestler in the gritty latter.

7. “The Visitor”: compelling, convincing slice-of-life, starting-over story with character actor Richard Jenkins embracing the role of a grieving, distant college professor who slowly re-enters the world after befriending the immigrant couple he finds living in his previously uninhabited rental. Poignant and encouraging.

6. “Tell No One”: Exciting, suspenseful French adaptation of American writer Harlen Coben’s mystery about a doctor who starts receiving e-mails with photos of his wife – who ostensibly was murdered years ago. Solid story and performances.

5. “Wall-E”: Pixar’s animated magic continues with this charmer that recalls some of the best comedies from the silent era. Hard not to fall for the lonely but creative little robot who compacts trash on a deserted Earth, then falls for a pristine but volatile visiting probe robot. Rendered with humor, sensitivity and loads of personality.

4. “Frost/Nixon”: Fine translation of the play based on the David Frost TV interviews with former president Richard Nixon in the ’70s, with Frank Langella superb as the ex prez. Rich performances, strong writing and direction (by Ron Howard) and insightful story.

3. “Slumdog Millionaire”: Wonderfully layered Dickensian saga about a young Indian man arrested and interrogated by police the day before he’s scheduled to go for the top prize in his country’s biggest quiz show. Director Danny Boyle parades him, and us, via unobtrusive flashbacks, through the violence and grime of the slums where he and his estranged brother grew up, fending for themselves.

The pictures provide a bleak yet colorful – in that Dickensian way – background to the tale of the young man’s enduring love for his childhood sweetheart. A powerful, sweeping saga enhanced by appealing performances by the actors who play the leads as children, teens and adults. And with a Bollywood musical production number on top of everything else.

2. “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”: Woody Allen’s best film in years is a charming meditation on love and what makes it stay, on changing and unchanging relationships, on men and women and life in general. Javier Bardem as a passionate painter and Scarlett Johansson, Rebecca Hall and, especially, Penelope Cruz as the women in his life are perfectly cast and, in their bumbling, fumbling, sexy ways, endearing. Fine writing and direction. A gem.

1. “Milk”: Sean Penn finally shows a tender side, allowing a host of emotions to eke through his portrayal of Harvey Milk, the country’s first openly gay man elected to a major political office, that of San Francisco supervisor in the late ’70s.

Director Gus Van Sant complements Penn’s Oscar-caliber performance with a coterie of heavy hitters, including Emile Hirsch, almost unrecognizable as the street hustler who becomes Milk’s trusted political adviser, James Franco as Milk’s lover and Josh Brolin as Dan White, the SF supervisor who Mayor George Moscone and Milk. Brolin’s earned a deserved Oscar Buzz in the supporting category.

Dustin Lance Black’s impressive screenplay paints Milk as a complex, kind-hearted and committed man who found himself in the right place – what became the Castro District – at what he helped make the right time. “Milk” paints a colorful and realistic portrait of SF in the ’70s and does a very good job blending old news footage of rallies and S.F. with its insightful, touching and spirited narrative.